The recurring theme of a fish not even bending a #7 or 8 Spey rod is just not correct.

Ard

Absolutely True. I even gave a reason why that is not correct. But there is a T-Shirt guy at Orvis who is far more convincing than people who actually do it. Physics be damned.

Just out of curiousity, is there anyone besides myself who regularly fishes for Bass with a two hand rod? How about Pike? How about still water?

You know, there are not a lot of things that really annoy me on this forum, but bad advice, especially bad advice that is repeatedly given does it pretty much everytime. This time the bad advice really didn't come from here. But from some T-Shirt selling know it all who I'll bet you a $100.oo right now has never done it. Where is this Orvis shop at? I want to call and find out just what this guy knows. The idea of a forum like this is to help, not hinder people. Bad advice floats here for what may very well be decades.

On a side note, for some reason the bulk of complete BS advice I see tossed around involves two handers. Just to pre-empt any of the rest of the common BS, You CAN land fish by yourself. You SHOULD NOT use single hand lines on your two hander. You DO NOT need current to load the rod. Switch rods are just short two handers. That's for the "switch rods are not spey rods" believers. Preferences are based on experience and not guesses.